Poetryclub13 - Tumblr Posts

love her. love her. love her.

you are waiting in between-

ans Meer

to the sea.

i learned how to speak seven languages by the time i was young. they were not what i thought they should be.

in each one, the word for world had no other meaning.

der Welt, mein Herz is a terrible terrible place.

is this why we flee? на море to the ocean, to the sea?

when i said language, i did not mean русская or deutsch or română; i meant a different sort of words.

how to show fear and regret and to speak angrily, with no remorse.

crying long hours, how you say, like the rainstorm.

there is no native language for grief because we are all fluent speakers.

there is a grammar for happiness that must be learned.

when i was smaller then, not of body but mind, i asked how you knew it was really the sea.

how it was not simply the red overwhelming everything else you saw.

i do not think i was really asking about the sea.

even know i do not know if the sea is what i mean when i say it is what we are all seeking.

weltzsmurch we are all world weary.

perhaps the sea is red because everything else is blue.

and the question still remains- if i say happiness in one language will you understand the meaning in another?

please understand i mean no harm.

für mein love, my love, my love, the sea my love, my dragoste my love, to see my love my love my love, is red.

in a place between words we cannot communicate and somehow we are all waiting in between.

спасибо, there is a way to reach the ocean from here.

is there an ocean everywhere around us.

in my mind the sea is red and my mind the sea.

a language of neutral patterns, waves, timing and frequency.

i cannot seem to rid myself of the sea and the sea cannot rid myself of me.

from speaking in a manner of many words i have only learned this:

the word for world is weary of being used in such a small manner.

and we have yet to set out on our own infinite sea, the red one we wade through.

of cut down trees and men. in every language the word for hatred is spelled like knife in back, in throat, in heart you do not have.

hatred is the killing of something not your own.

a small body rests am Meer too tired to know the consequence.

we are the word for emptiness and conscience.

we the only word that matters.

the sea is red at our feet.

haiku

eyes of dented ink; 

summer liquor store color 

crawl into this bed 

© Margaux Emmanuel

wake up

you write

        arbitrary letters

                           on the lampshade dust

a game

        of mental scrabble,

modernity’s

           aphasia

the light turns on

v

u

  l

   n

     e

       r

        a

          b

            l

              e

you are in bed

writing

          what you think,

letting your skin

                  nervously flirt

                                      with unfamiliar sheets,

letting your pen 

                      nervously flirt

                                       with innocent paper,

meeting

            your pale lover’s

                                weak eyes

                                            for the first time:

we all need

           to meet

                   ourselves.

© Margaux Emmanuel

note to self

a glimpse of melancholia

in the lukewarm saké

of a child’s laughter

© Margaux Emmanuel

visiting hours are over

a melody from western japan

    sticks to the tears you begin to cry

“visiting hours are over”

    the curtains of your heart close

you sit on the stage

    and fold

origami feelings

    delicate

intricate

    intimate

weak

now

    you can take off your mask

and let yourself hum

    quietly

nervously

    and wait

to hear the same tune

    from the audience’s side

© Margaux Emmanuel

light-headed

I know a place

where the nights are hidden under a veil of tobacco

I know a place 

where lovers wait for the rain to cease, sheltered by a stranger’s open garage

holding stolen beers and each other’s hands 

I know a place

where boys with messy hair sit on the windowsill reading Cocteau 

I know a place

where people fall in love over a cigarette and a line of Tennyson 

It’s a place 

where life isn’t so bad 

© Margaux Emmanuel 

2003

Postcards from Saigon

yellowed pictures

pants rolled up to his knees

dark ray bans

thick rims

raindrops on lips

or raindrop lips

his eyes,

a different shade of brown

those that say

“buy me a beer

before I change my mind”,

dusty eyelids

a scar

lingering

under his eye

a dog-eared book

in his hand

where he wrote in the margins

These

are

the

lines

that

prove

that

my

existence

is

a

mistake

but you only read 

the pencil prophecy

after

you had kissed him  

after

he had taken

all of those

painkillers

after

he had written that letter

saying

“I too

was once loved,

but not by you”.

© Margaux Emmanuel 2018

poisoned apricots 

under the frozen floorboards

of a sick child’s heart 

17

they were all desperate

to light your cigarette

only seventeen years old

but lips leafed in gold

I stopped believing in god

the moment I saw you,

you sepia-toned haunted ghost

you keyed the words

of your own stolen bible

on the edge of my tongue

your eyes were a pool of dusk

where I saw shadow puppets

dancing on candlelight

rose-pricked skin

and I had only ever seen

the rosy dawn

that never dared to kiss me

at the end of the night

you’d be gone in the morning,

and I’d still feel you

against my skin

as if you had been

my very own 

living nightmare

as if you had said the things

you had never thought

never said

but that I had always longed

to hear. 

the sun was poorly tuned, still glimmered in the dark so I poured him a drink; post-curfew happiness

© Margaux Emmanuel

time, show me your hand let me flirt with your cards come on, let me pick one, just one, let me be surprised let the needle of your minutes, of your aces, pierce into my skin let them be the scars of my youth from when I had receipts in my pockets from nights I never lived from when I built castles with the sand of your hour glass from when I unbricked my school with sneers of contempt from when I saw beer in the foamy shores of the Euphrates from when I wrote arbitrary letters on the lampshade dust the simmering silence until the light turned on l o o k a t t h e c l o c k [look at the clock] but the time on the clock had stopped seconds minutes hours three damoclean swords had escaped to hang above my head I used to be so young, never too old never too bold but in three million seconds you’d lay your cards on the table and show me the way out I was never a player at this game the wild shuffled heartbeat of youth was the tremor of the metronome but now now you smile and I don’t know if you’re bluffing or not so please, time, show me your hand.

never too old

kabukicho

There was a bar fight in Kabukicho, a gunshot in my ears. Loud, deafening. Empty. An actor, a haunted ghost dragged his body onto the stage, the sticky night grabbing his ankles, a hole, freshly carved out by an imaginary bullet, gaping open in his chest. He trembled as he held a glass in his hand, as if he had wanted to drink to the possible, the impossible, his winces in pain hidden by his mask. All there was was him  and the smell of stale tobacco and streaks of red delving into his cheeks. He rattled the melting ice in his glass, reflecting the 80 watt red light venom of his eyes, where silhouettes were pressed against the sliding doors of his pupils, black shadows on which he has never seen the sun rise. The amber flicker of another life replaces his agate grace with sadness, stretches out time like a loose string. He’s playing the last act, chewing on the passersby’s skin like flavorless gum.

© Margaux Emmanuel

audience participation

Last night. “A volunteer from the crowd?” murmured a croaky voice with a smile that bled through the dark. She stood up, a little too quickly, a little too ready to succumb to the sacrifice. That, she remembers. Let her smoke-filled lungs breathe under the blinding spotlight.

Now. The cherry pits leak red into the closed palms of her hands as she rattles the melting ice in her glass. An orange tree branch dipping into foamless waters, honey skin melting in the tide. She sits back onto the burnt grass, letting purple Chinese shadows dance on her closed eyelids. Time stretches out

Like

    the

      Loose

              String

of her fishnets from the night before. The same blinding light. The same vague shapeless shadows, taunting her from afar, gnawing at her bones. The same disaccord of light striping her eyes.

The stage light, the gunned golden lacquered sun of her southern childhood, was thudding against her cherry-stained, wine-stained cheeks. She opened its parlor doors and let the smoke of its colorless memories edge into her mind. Whistles in the dark. Bills itching her skin like burnt grass.

She could almost hear it again: A volunteer from the crowd? A chronic daydream that latches onto nightmares.

© Margaux Emmanuel